We Are Okay, by Nina LaCour: I could tell that this novel was going to break my heart from the first chapter, but I kept reading it anyway because of how atmospheric and cozy it is. Reading We Are Okay is like being in a snow globe full of glittering flakes but wrapped up in your warmest, softest blankets. Even the cover art, which when I look at it again is a girl standing on a bed in front of the ocean and moon, but which I initially thought was a young woman walking on the face of the moon through outer space with an enormous gentle giant of a planet in the foreground, contributes to the mood. This was just a lovely, lovely book.
The Andromeda Strain, by Michael Crichton: I had never read a Michael Crichton book! I’m not sure why, given my proclivity for disease narratives that are halfway between science and science fiction. It’s tricky to read a book from 1969 that’s heavily reliant on technology and innovation without applying modern standards…but I think my quibbles were valid regardless, eg “we missed an important memo because the machine didn’t ding!” seems like the 1969 equivalent of “I knew that a highly important text might come through, but I didn’t once check my phone because it didn’t make any noise! Whoops, turns out I had the ringer off.” I enjoyed this as it was, but it felt like two-thirds setup and then very minimal crisis and resolution. I had a persistent feeling I was skimming without meaning to, and no matter how much I tried to force myself to slow down I didn’t ever really feel like I had the five main characters straight in my mind. Each needed an epithet, like in Greek myth or epic, to remind me who was in focus. The ending came and went so quickly – it felt like a movie that had been planned as the first of a trilogy (and maybe it is that in book form; I know there’s at least a sequel).
When We Cease to Understand the World, by Benjamín Labatut: I love the conceit behind this – I guess I would call it a collection of stories?: imagining the thoughts and emotions of the mathematicians and scientists behind a handful of world-changing discoveries and inventions. But it was a little unmooring not knowing which elements were fictionalized. I think I would have preferred if everything outside of the minds of the characters was factual and the liberties taken were interior (and maybe that’s how it actually was – in which case I would have liked clearer indications). Although the chapters are self-contained, they not only clearly belong together and resonate off of one another but also could hardly have a fraction of the impact when taken alone. I…enjoyed this, but felt like part of it was missing, and that it could have been so much more.
Death With Interruptions, by José Saramago: I read Blindness years and years ago so I don’t fully remember if it had the same feel as this – the story felt very non-visual to me (which, of course, would be somewhat appropriate for Blindness). That is, I couldn’t picture the setting, what anyone looked like, and so on, because there was so little description. The dialogue was often hard to attribute because there were no quotation marks and on every page there was a veritable thicket of commas. At the same time, the examination of bureaucracy and the dialogue are so witty and sharp that it was often delightful reading anyway. When I was about two thirds of the way through this, I left my Kindle in Philadelphia and my loan expired, so that was tragic (Reading With Interruptions).
The New Wilderness, by Diane Cook: I loved Diane’s collection Man v. Nature, and I’m glad my temporary separation from my Kindle drew me to pull this from my shelf (I love analog books…but I love reading in the dark more). I was expecting an apocalyptic/dystopian setting, and that’s somewhat accurate, but more nuanced (don’t get me wrong – I also love straight up dystopia, but it was a different and fresher experience to have a world in which everyone is suffering through climate change but only a small group are living truly different lives than we are). The writing is stunning – and would be stunning no matter the subject or setting – but I have a weakness in particular for stunning writing about southwestern landscapes (or maybe just western journeys in general – thinking of books as different as In the Distance, How Much of These Hills is Gold, The Hunger, American Elsewhere, The Indifferent Stars Above, Blood Meridian…) and their flora and fauna. The characterization and nuances of the plot match up in strength to the writing.
